I don’t want to be the ‘when I was young’ guy lamenting a past that’s gone, but I genuinely lament a past that’s gone.
Growing up in the 1980s, the football landscape was sparsely dotted.
Thursday night would be League Teams, where Lou Richards, Jack Dyer, and Bob Davis would banter as they announced the teams for that week.
Every game was played Saturday afternoon at various suburban grounds. There was also a novelty watching the scores from other matches – particularly if you needed results to fall a certain way – come up quarter by quarter on the big old manual scoreboards.
On Saturday evening Peter Landy would host Seven’s Big League, which would show a quarter and a bit from the match of the round, about a quarter of some other game and a cross over to Scott Palmer for all the football headlines.
Late at night the ABC had The Winners, which would often show a different section of the match of the round or another game altogether. They also had segments for mark and goal of the day.
Come Sunday, we had Channel 7’s World of Sport, where the panel would talk about the games, interview coaches and then have segments like ‘mark of the day’, ‘goal of the day’ and ‘what’s your decision?’, which would bring on an umpire to clarify several contentious decisions.
Sunday was the demesne of the reserves competition. About the only extracurricular football was the preseason tournament, which was played concurrently with the early part of the home-and-away season but mid-week. It was also taken semi-seriously by clubs. Then there’d be the state game.
The whole week I’d look forward to Saturday, anxious to see Collingwood in action. My older brother had a community of friends that I immediately felt a part of. We’d watch the match, cheering as a group or complaining as a tribe.
If we were winning, I’d be anxious to get home so I could kick the ball around outside and relive the day’s highlights. If we were losing, I’d be anxious to get home, so I could kick the ball around outside and somehow overturn the result – or at least imagine I was doing so.
(Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Now obviously the competition has evolved over the years. It’s migrated games to Friday nights, then to Sundays and the occasional Monday, then to different timeslots. More football shows appeared, and then even more when cable became a thing. The games were separated, so there was little or no overlap. More teams came in.
We got more and more and more football.
But the reality is that’s not necessarily a good thing.
Football has gone from this precious commodity to market saturation. If it were a stock, you’d offload. There are games and football shows everywhere.
There have also been times we’ve had games from Thursday right through to Monday, and then the football shows occupy the other three days. If somebody were bombarding me similarly in email with product marketing, it’d be called spam.
The mechanisms that were introduced to create equalisation have done anything but. Since the salary cap became stringently implemented (I’d mark the early 2000s as when that occurred, right about when Carlton were heavily punished for breaches) and the draft became the route to rebuilding (around the same time, where it became more science than speculative), we’ve had one dynasty after another dominate the competition.
In that time Hawthorn’s won four flags; Geelong, Richmond, and Brisbane three; West Coast and Sydney two. That’s 17 flags. Hardly seems equal, does it?
(Photo: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
The expansion of the league has diluted the talent pool so that so many so-so teams are stuck in long rebuilds. If they don’t get it right, they have to go around again. Look at Melbourne and Carlton, who had access to top picks in the early 2000s, became finalists but were never really contenders and then ultimately had to restart from scratch.
The dilution of the talent pool and these long uncertain rebuilds mean there are always a lot of so-so teams, and they face one another in mediocre games. Check the fixture any week – the bulk of the games are uninteresting. Watch them and we see a litany of skill errors, dull defensive mires and mediocre contests.
While the nationalisation of the competition might be a good thing, creating teams in states where Australian rules isn’t indigenous has been problematic. Gold Coast have struggled since their inception. Greater Western Sydney have regularly played in finals but have hardly converted fans.
Some might say that this is a generational project. Well, North Melbourne entered the then VFL in 1925. How do they fare for fans and finances almost 100 years later? Even with their dominance in the late 1970s and 1990s they’re still struggling. Do we think it’s going to be different for the Suns and Giants?
It would’ve been more logical for existing clubs to migrate (or be forced) into those areas, a la South Melbourne’s move into Sydney and Fitzroy merging with the Brisbane Bears. That would’ve given those new teams core support, history and, most importantly, some semblance of marquee.
Whereas once I looked forward to the weekend, now it often feels as if there’s nothing but football – if it’s not games, it’s football shows and clickbait headlines on social media. Even if every game was a great game, there would still be some desensitisation to it as a core product because there’s so much of it.
But every game isn’t great. Most of them are substandard. Then we go back to genuinely horrible (if not off-putting) times for games, interpretations and rules that change whimsically and some coverage that compels you to reach for the mute button on your remote.
“Switch off,” might be the popular counter.
I do, but that doesn’t change that this is the reality of the league I’m invested in.
Even if I watch just my game (which I often do) that week, I know all those problems are thriving and that the existing mechanisms don’t actually equalise the very top end of the table but the next 15 or so spots, pitting them into mediocrity while one team usually runs rampant.
You can have too much of a good thing, and in this case it’s not a good thing. It’s too much of a so-so thing.
It’s unsurprising crowds are down.
The product used to be a pinata full of goodies.
Now it’s a pinata that’s been whacked, shattered, trod on and spilt its goodies everywhere so that people have trampled on them and they no longer have the splendour they once enjoyed.
Yet we’re still being told it’s precious booty.
Just how long does the competition go on before the AFL realises the very things they’re championing – rule changes and tweaks, more and more games, expansion, equalisation et cetera – are the very things pushing people away?
Nick
Roar Guru
The sanfl are the big winners for me! By choosing to watch a different league, you have just perfectly proved my airline point, you ding dong. Well done
Your first comment, while I don’t entirely agree, was fine! At least you generalised what you believe people who are becoming jaded by the game they used to love should do if dis-satisfied. Then you went and got personal to a Dogs fan with a different opinion ???????????? I agree, your airline comparison is way off, I can choose from a multitude of differing airlines who at the end of the day provide a similar service - get you from point A to B. I cannot dump the game of AFL I’ve been following for 50 years for say netball, and expect my enjoyment of how footy used to be to be comparable! I used to watch 4-5 games in full every single week, and would miss my own wedding if the crows were playing! Was a gold member of my club! Not to mention watching every footy show throughout the week. I am disconnecting from the AFL by not watching ANY afl shows, and lucky if I even watch my own game in full these days. My membership has been downgraded to bronze too! The game has become a corporatised, defensive, flooded unwatchable game with too many rules, precious umpires and inconsistencies in interpretations, match committee, values! So Yes - I am disconnecting, I am not the same consumer of their product I was. The sanfl are the big winners for me!
pablocruz
Roar Rookie
I do take your point. Though I watch very few games now and certainly don't participate in live blogs ad nauseum like others do. But yeah, whatever.
pablocruz
Roar Rookie
Great insight.
Maximus Insight
Guest
"The upside is I get more time to spend with family and to pursue other interests." Classic, by your posting history clearly these other interests include contributing copious volumes of comments under AFL articles at the Roar!
Maximus Insight
Guest
Haha, how in your persecuted little soccer brain do you reconcile that nobody has responded to this trolling in 5 hours?
Maximus Insight
Guest
"The mechanisms that were introduced to create equalisation have done anything but." This is rubbish. The fact that teams have been able to achieve dynasties does not mean equalisation has not been effective. Likewise, clubs that have allowed any cultural cohesion to fall out their arse having long periods of suffering also doesn't. Obviously, though resources are equalised and draft picks provide a handicapping, Clubs can still establish exceptional cultures and systems and other clubs can still have decades of barely getting off the canvas. If it was purely cyclical it would indeed be boring. Right now, the ladder bats down to 14 with 12 teams still legitimate finals contenders. The Hawks and Giants are both formidable opponents on their day are in 13th and 14th. I am sure a bit of it is being a Collingwood supporter in a renewal phase with a far more attacking, contested, game plan, but I think the game itself is in fine health.
pablocruz
Roar Rookie
Yes. T.V. rights and sponsorship. It is folly to suggest W.C. saved the league with their $4m injection.
pablocruz
Roar Rookie
Yeah. Like, cool story bro'. Fact is you don't know. Plenty here on the Roar still watch and don't like what they see. You're expecting people who have been fans for decades to simply stop wham bam. You're dreaming. Extrapolating willy nilly with no facts to base your flimsy argument on which is, in fact, a moot point anyway. No-one here has suggested if we complain often enough the AFL will change. You ran with that!
Nick
Roar Guru
Accuse me all you like, it's your right and it's no skin off my back. I've been involved in senior roles in user and customer experience for the past 8-9 years. I go all around APAC listening to the feedback of our customers. Trust me - we listen to those who can back up their arguments with some substance. Any good business would. It gives us something to work with. But people who are just gonna hate for the sake of it will be ignored. So I ask you again...if you think the AFL is broken, why don't you share with the class when you think it wasn't, and then build from that? But I'd wager you either can't tell me when it wasn't broken, or 20 different people will give 20 different answers to when they think it wasn't broken. It's just nonsense to say something is broken if you can't identify a time when it wasn't. No one in AFL house would take that seriously. It's just uninformed garbage I'm afraid.
Nick
Roar Guru
Your not supposed to take that comment seriously because it’s funny. Ok, lol...I missed that. My bad. :stoked: So they don’t listen to whingers but they tweak the rules on a whim….interesting. They don't tweak it on a whim. This is a popular misconception. They do listen to the fans, and they do engage with them. All stakeholders have had the chance to air concerns, but they also offer suggestions. Some of these tweaks are direct affirmations of peoples suggestions. What they don't do, and won't do is take on board complaints from "in my day" whingers without suggestions for improvements.
Pope Paul VII
Roar Rookie
I accuse you of being like Scotty from Marketing.
Pope Paul VII
Roar Rookie
Your not supposed to take that comment seriously because it's funny. So they don't listen to whingers but they tweak the rules on a whim....interesting.
Nick
Roar Guru
Anyway. The game is broken, not the teams in it. It needs fixing. Again, the AFL would just rightly ignore you. Present arguments as to why how the game is broken (therefore, prove a time when it wasn't broken) and finally, present arguments to show how it can be fixed and then you'd be heard. A sensible organisation engages with their customers and seeks to learn from them. But no sensible organisation will listen to an unreasoned whinge from one. If you won't provide anything they can listen to, then they will close the door on you. It's like people who attack the ABC for being (allegedly) left-wing. It's a great bandwagon argument to shout from the couch, but when asked to provide facts....silence.
Nick
Roar Guru
Footy is not life and death, it’s much more important than that. It is tribal and traditional as Pablo has pointed out. Yeah...that's why no one takes these comments seriously at AFL house. No rational business adminstrator would EVER run a business based on that philosophy. There is also a difference between a comment, and a serial whinge. The AFL, nor any business, will engage with whingers.
Nick
Roar Guru
The injection of West Coast into the competition quite obviously led to a significantly higher TV rights offering. And Adelaide four years later. The VFL certainly wasn't going to die, but it absolutely wasn't going to grow. It would have withered. The expansion to a national game saved most of the Melbourne clubs. The extra TV money assured that.
Nick
Roar Guru
To suggest that ‘it is a staggering small minority of people who think that’ is easy for you to say but can you actually back that up with any proof whatsoever? I strongly doubt it The very, very strong and stable TV viewing numbers is the most obvious answer. If people were like you, you'd see a ratings drop across the board. The fact is we have one of the most open competitions in years. 7 teams with legitimate top 4 chances and the top 8 is open to at least 11 teams. When it the last time it's been that even at the mid point? People may not be going to the grounds, but they are watching it in spades on TV. So people ARE watching it, and enjoying it. People won't watch something they don't like! The amount of die hard "tribal" fans who aren't, is very, very small. Haters gonna hate I suppose, but I think this season has been terrific. The game evolves. Everything does. If you don't like it, don't watch it.
Pope Paul VII
Roar Rookie
The earliest surviving text is "Merry Christmas" sent 3/12/1992 so at least they got off to a good start.
Pope Paul VII
Roar Rookie
Which is of course ludicrous Nick, like your airline analogy. Footy is not life and death, it's much more important than that. It is tribal and traditional as Pablo has pointed out. Of course followers of the game should comment and the AFL should listen. They in fact listen as they they have been tweaking the beejeezus out of the game for the last decade.
Ben
Guest
Deep down they know that afl is a rubbish game, they're just Victorians and others from the tertiary states and are too proud to admit that their own creation is in reality quite rubbish.